[EXPRESSO] Backrooms (2026) | Liminal Architects

I’ll come clean, i’ve heard of this being another creepypasta phenomenon (apparently spurred at random by a single picture never meant to be more than that)… so i immediatly lost interest, as these come off as just another horror frenzy whipped up to make some quick buck in a way or another, so imagine my confusion when i saw the A24 logo for the Backrooms movie trailer.

I guess Ari Aster movies lose more money than they make nowadays, and for the record i never saw the titular web series by Kane Parson, which here directs and writes this film adaptation, nor i will be lambasting Backrooms The Movie because it’s from a Youtube turned horror filmaker, because it’s unfair, and – as i’ve noted before – this pipeline mostly seems to be working out decent or good work, weirdly enough.

The plot is set in the 90s, about Clark, a frustrated man that would like to pursue his dream career as an architect, but he’s stuck running an unsuccessful furniture store, and one day, while checking the electric grid for malfunctions, finds a hidden door in the basement room of the store, leading to a weird labyrynth resembling desolated office spaces, full of weird geometry and irregularly placed objects, that seems to span and lead into a seemingly infinite number or rooms….

Honestly, while you can tell this was spun from the “SCP-creepypasta-analog horror” side of internet trends, the Backrooms film does fare better than i expected.

It’s nothing special, again, and this is basically a “liminal space” iteration of the found footage formula, arguably the more normal film A24 ever distributed, but the plot has some surprises, the sound design is top notch, acting is good, it is entertaining, visually captivating and avoids overexplaining itself into absolute banality.

Decent.

[EXPRESSO] Passenger (2026) | Roadside Hitchin’

I was a bit concerned when i saw Passenger pushed by very little marketing even here, given it’s the new horror movie from respected director Andrè Øvredral (Trollhunter, The Autopsy Of Jane Doe, Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark, The Last Voyage Of The Demeter).

The plot involves a couple that has to leave their house and decide to start living on the road, driving their little caravan around the US, but when they stop one night to try and help the victim of some gruesome road accident, it turns out they involutarily picked up a sinister entity, dubbed by early travelers as the “Passenger”…

The premise isn’t bad at all, and i’m glad we have Øvredral directing, because he can actually do effective jumpscares, the photography is good, the characters are decent, the acting is pretty solid too, but Passenger as a whole isn’t even bad, it’s just disappointing, especially coming from a director that has already proved he can do better than this.

most of the script has either half baked ideas or just rehashes very generic horror elements, which is especially true of the “Passenger” itself, this derivative, generic ass looking and acting demon motherfucker, and even with the lore being an American roadside folklore mythology affair, it then pivots into religious territory… which doesn’t really fit.

There are some nice ideas like them using the cinema projector to visualize the entity, but the rules of the entity seems vague at best, often ignored anyway, the setpieces don’t really build upon each other, and overall the movie just doesn’t do anything original, interesting or that hasn’t been done WAY better before.

Passenger isn’t terrible or anything, it’s watchable, but also incredibly disappointing and frustrating, because you can see the better movie this could have been.

[EXPRESSO] The Sheep Detectives (2026) | Chicken The Godless

I’ll be frank, at a glance i kinda dismissed this when i saw it appear in cinemas, but after repeated positive word of mouth and some coverage encouraging not to sleep on this one, i’ve decided to check out The Sheep Detectives.

I’m sure this also beats the awful new animated adaptation of Animal Farm in terms of “animal rising up and growing a political coscience” aspect of things, and that movie doesn’t even have Hugh Jackman as a lonely british shepherd, Greg, that loves tending to his flock, so much he named every single sheep and even made a habit of reading mystery murder novels to them as a good night story of sorts, pretending like they can actually understand him.

But it turns out the sheeps are actually able to understand his words, and when Greg is found dead one night, the animals, especially the most intelligent sheep of the flock, Lily, decide to practice what they learned from the books and help the incredibly inept single policeman in town to solve the whodunnit and avenge Logan, even if that entails finding out way more than they really want to know about the world, and questioning their existence and core beliefs.

The surprisingly star studded cast (both as VA and live action actors) is actually just the proverbial icing, since this is a very, very nice blend of mystery murder genre savviness without going into subversion territory with comedy that’s actually fairly witty, despite while still being a very wholesome family film with adorable talking animals for the kids, one that also manages to be emotional without becoming outright saccharine, and somehow juggle that with more heavy themes without becoming depressing.

What a very nice surprise, which i didn’t expect to say about the “sheep existentialism” family film.

[EXPRESSO] Remarkably Bright Creatures (2026) | Psych-opus

Due to wallet woes, why not, let’s see what’s new on Netflix, this film about a woman and an old intelligent octopus she cares for in the local acquarium sounds cute enough, why not?

Based on the best selling book of the name same by Shelby Van Pelt, Remarkably Bright Creatures is the story of Tova, a widoved old woman that leads a lonely existence and does night shifts of taking care-cleaning the aquarium of a small coastal town.

She still struggles to cope with her son, Erik, having passed away decades ago, and the only one that she seems able to communicate with is Marcellus, a big old octopus that lives in the acquarium, its thoughts expressed in an elegant and sarcastic voiceover by Alfred Molina.

That is, until Cameron, a failed musician and a bit of a wanderer, troubled by his the absent father, comes into town…

While fairly obvious where the story points (and goes) to, it’s more about the manner of which these two will manage to connect for the better, with the touch of “whimsy-magic” of the octopus that acts an involuntary psychiatrist recipient and is given a “talking” voice to comment back for the audience’s sake.

That is actually the problem, as the film is either too scared to let the silent moments work, or maybe because it’s a Netflix release, it explains any metaphor or anything that expects audiences having some semblance of basic narrative literacy.

Yet, despite that and some issues like subplots being a bit too superficial, it does work because it’s not trying to “Oscar-max”, it’s actually just a little gentle, melanchonic, genuine feel-good tale of lonely people, normal people that talk as such, one never cynical in intent or execution.

Could have been better, but definitely worth a watch.